Semana Santa - Sevilla

To prepare for my Semana Santa / Spring Break vacation, I booked two nights at a hostel in Seville and two nights at a hostel in Punta Umbria, Huelva.  Other than that, I didn't plan anything.  On Monday afternoon, I headed to the bus station thinking I could catch the 1:00pm bus to Seville.  I got up to the lady at the ticket counter at 12:47pm and asked for the next bus to Seville (side note: when interacting with anyone in Spain sitting behind a ticket window you have about a 90% chance that they will be rude and/or hate their life).  She told me 3:00pm....my roommate warned me this would happen.  I was trying to get to the city in Spain with the most famous Semana Santa celebration in the country without booking in advance.  I figured I might as well buy my return ticket from Huelva to Madrid since I was at the window with 2 hours and 10 minutes to spare.  I also didn't want to risk getting stuck in Huelva on Friday morning.

Even thought I was at the station over two hours before my bus was schedule to leave, I still managed to almost miss it.  What can I say? I have a talent for being late.  I had to run to the bus terminal (#49 where the sign at the ticket window had said it would be), only to discover it was at #12.  I ran to the bus, where the driver was waiting for me, and managed to get into my seat by 2:59pm.  Lucky for me, I was seated next to an old Chinese man who was already asleep, with his mouth wide open and his legs stretched as far apart as possible.  I kept trying to get comfortable and not inhale too much of his body odor, but he wouldn't budge.  Then, the leaning started.  He was leaning so far over that I was sitting on only half of my chair.  I was letting out audible sounds of frustration in an attempt to wake him up because I didn't want to actually have to touch the guy.  Finally a young Spanish guy behind me said, "Is my leg bothering you?"  I hadn't even noticed that he had stretched his leg under my chair.  I think he just wanted to help.  He told me to try putting the arm rest down, but the old guy was too far over for that. Then, using a lot more effort than you would think necessary, he pushed the old guy for me, all the while asking, "Joder...Is this guy even alive?"  The arm rest barrier was a success, more or less, for the rest of the trip.

I got to Seville and started walking in the direction of the hostel, or at least what I thought was the direction of the hostel, from what I had gathered from studying Google maps the night before.  Once I hit the old quarters, I saw the Semana Santa processions and nazarenos (or as we call them in the U.S....people dressed in KKK outfits).  It was a lot more shocking and unnerving than I thought it would be.  A lot of them were young kids walking around using their iPhones!  I checked in at the hostel, where I got the usual response of  "Wow! You're Spanish is reallly good and you're not even from the west coast?!"

The first thing I noticed about Seville was that it smelled amazing.  On Tuesday, I kept looking around for magnolia trees because that's what I thought the smell was.  It took me a few hours to realize it was the orange trees blossoming.  It was rainy and humid the whole time I was there, so I didn't go to all the sights.  I didn't even open my guide book.  I walked around the city and got back to the hostel, where I met a lot of strange people and a few very cool ones.  We all hung out on the rooftop terrace for four hours, and then the storm started.  We squeezed in under the gazebo and stayed there because that was clearly the smartest place to be in a thunder and lightning storm.  It was strange to be huddled with 10 strangers under a gazebo, sitting around a table speaking 4 or 5 different languages simultaneously, but those kinds of things always happen here.  The storm was so close that there were only 3 seconds between the thunder and lightning.  The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, you say? No.

The second thing I noticed about Seville was that it's full of foreigners! I know that Seville has the most popular study abroad program at UNC, so I don't know why I didn't brace myself to be around obnoxious English speakers for two days.  I do also realize that I went at one of the most touristy times of the year.  I went into a cafe on Tuesday for my standard cafe con leche and tostada (best breakfast ever) and the waitress asked me if I was going to come back.  I told her I wouldn't be back because I live in Madrid, and she told me that she had thought I was a student since so many come to Seville.  When I told her I was surprised by the amount of foreign students she replied, "Yeah, you probably wouldn't have come if you knew, right?"  I love sharing moments of mutual annoyance with Spaniards.

So that's the story of how I went to Seville, which has 340 days of sun every year and the most famous Semana Santa celebrations in the country, and didn't see any of it.  What I did see was beautiful, and the people I met were amazingly cool.  Honestly, the trip served as a turning point in my life where things started looking up after four months of mierda, so I've already romanticized it in my mind.  A much-needed second trip is already on the books for next year.  

“She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s important—you know ”

Here are some reasons why my job is amazing!!!

Being around kids (1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th graders in my case) is a fail-proof way to get your mind off your own problems, especially when you feel obligated to accomplish something with them - not just babysitting, but rather working towards a long-term goal.  The time that you're completely absorbed in the kids is a whole chunk of time when it's impossible to think about yourself.  Children are so self-centered and naive that nothing would ever be accomplished if the teacher was as well.

The other amazing thing about kids is that they accept you as you are.  Even if they think they're being "rebellious" or "getting away with" sneaky behavior, they have no idea how much nicer they are than adults.  Young teachers often wonder, "Was I as bad as my students when I was their age?!" but instead I wonder, "Was there ever a teacher in my school that was having such a hard time that we actually helped him/her without even knowing it?"

My kids at work are the reason I drag my butt out of bed every morning, but my girls and moms in Arroyomolinos are the only people on this continent that I can really depend on.  The girls have come so far with their English since the beginning of 3rd grade.  They can understand everything I say, even when I spend the entire hour (or hour and a half) speaking only English.  I may have accidentally given Andrea a New York accent because a few months ago she said to me, “Niki you gotta speak Spanish!” I almost fell off my chair. I said, “Where did you learn the word gotta? That’s horrible.”  They say the sweetest and most honest things to me…like when Maria told me, “Niki, espero que te quedes en España por siempre” or that she prefers “the weekend Niki” she saw on her mom’s Facebook pictures.  Sometimes they say feisty and sarcastic things to me like, “No me interesa tu vida” during CONVERSATION practice or “¡Como se nota que somos hermanas!” when they do something similar. (I still can’t tell the twins apart, by the way).     

The girls’ moms, Gemma and Isa, are the most generous and compassionate people I know.  I always knew I could count on the two of them for help, but it wasn’t until winter break that I realized they really were my only support network in Spain. I don’t know if it was more friend instinct or maternal instinct, but whatever it was, they’re the reason I’m still here. I know they’ll be in my life forever, no matter where my future jobs may take me, and one day when the girls are older I’ll tell them about how amazing their moms actually are.

As American as apple pie!

Today was just your average Tuesday.  I finished work at 4:30pm, got on the train to go tutor the girls in Arroyomolinos, and when I got to their house, Isa told me, "You know the woman who I told you works for us? She delivers our molds and prosthetic teeth to the dentist offices? Well she made you an apple pie."  At first, I thought something got lost in translation....but no, sure enough, a woman who has never even met me, had made me an apple pie.  She even wrote my name on it with pie dough.  My first reaction was, "Oh how nice!" My second reaction was, "What's inside? She's trying to kill me."

I'm still in shock over it.  I don't even know what this woman looks like or what her name is, and yet she made me a pie and spelled my name right!!! (My grandma can't even spell my name right!) Isa said that since she talks so much about me, this woman feels like she knows me already.  I must be making a good name for myself around these parts.

The catastrophe of Nov. 30, 2011

I got home from work on Wednesday night, exhausted as usual, after working over 7 hours in Alcorcón and tutoring for over an hour in Arroyomolinos.  I had been trying to get my laundry done since Monday, but sharing one washing machine between 5 people is always a challenge. However, I was determined and desperate.  The fact that I wore capris to work when it was 40ºF shows the urgency of my clothes-washing situation.
   

I noticed there were clothes hanging on our clothesline, clothes hanging on our drying rack, a bucket of wet clothes sitting on the kitchen windowsill, and a load of wet clothes in the laundry machine waiting to be claimed by their rightful owner. I opened the kitchen window and leaned out to see if there was any room on the line…..and that´s when it happened.  The entire bucket of Victor´s wet clothes that was sitting on the outside windowsill went crashing down….4 floors….hitting every single neighbor´s clothesline on the way down, and finally landing with a huge crack in the dank courtyard below.  Come to think of it, I don´t know if the crash was that loud, or if it was the sound that was ringing through my head when I realized I had just dropped someone else´s clothes down the inaccessible interior shaft of a Spanish apartment building.

I screamed for Topher, my friend who is currently residing on the sofa bed in our saloncito until he moves into his apartment.  It took me a good 50 seconds of standing in frozen shock before I realized I had to deal with the situation.  I told Topher he had to come with me down to the lobby.  We went downstairs and saw the clothes and the broken bucket, but I could only stare longingly at them through the barred windows.  A boy came down the stairs, and I whipped around and asked (not even trying to hide the panic in my voice), ¨Perdona, ¿sabes como entrar en el patio? ¡¡¡Es que se me cayó toda la ropa de mi compañero de piso y necesito cogerla….AHORA!!!!¨  I then realized it was the Belgian guy who I had run into a few days before when I was struggling to get my keys in the front door.  (The boy obviously thinks I´m manic at this point.)  He said he didn´t know how to get to the courtyard and that he had some socks down there as well.  He starting laughing at my cries of panic/hysteria and when I told him, ¨No, you can´t laugh! This is bad!¨ he pointed at Topher and said, ¨How come I can´t laugh, but he can?¨…I think this may be the start of a beautiful friendship between Topher, the Belgian, and I.

I decided to get over the embarrassment and ring the doorbell of the only apartment in the lobby.  I could hear voices, but they weren’t answering the door.  I knocked…and knocked again, to no avail.  Finally an elderly couple came in the building, and I asked them if there was a way to get into the courtyard.  The wife told me that the only way to access it was through the nail salon next door.  Topher and I went to the nail salon (in our pajamas) and had to explain the situation to a nice little Chinese lady.  She led us to the back room, slid a heavy box out from in front of the door, and we got the bucket and about 1/3 of the clothes.

The next obstacle was to go to the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd floor clotheslines and try to reel in the rest of Victor’s clothes.  The 1^st floor was a success.  The 2^nd and 3^rd floors’ clotheslines, however, have knots on them that stop random strangers from pulling clothes into the stairwell.  Topher’s brilliant idea was to knock the clothes off and have them land on the 1^st floor's clothesline.  It didn’t work.  They fell into the courtyard.  Cut to: Topher and Niki having to go back to the Chinese nail salon and asking the poor lady if we could go in the back again.

We finally got all the clothes and went back to the apartment, but the bucket didn’t look quite full enough to me.  I looked down the shaft and saw two pairs of boxers hanging from my downstairs neighbors’ plants on their kitchen windowsill. I went down and rang their doorbell, prepared to explain the situation for the 6^th time, and it turned out to be the elderly couple that originally helped us out in the lobby!  They got the boxers, and all that was left to do was to confess to Victor.  When he got home I said, “Victor, the clothes in that bucket were yours right? Don’t flip out, but they…” and he said, “They fell?”  He wasn’t even surprised it happened!!! We never put the bucket of clothes out there, but he said he just wanted them to get a bit of air!!!

Later that night, Christian came in the saloncito and said, “Hey Niki, I’m defrosting a container of soup on the windowsill.  Be careful.  It’s frozen solid. You could kill a Chinese person.” I replied with a classy gesture and said, "The middle finger is international right?"

You know you don't have a drinking problem when.....

Something completely unlikely has happened....I have a bar, "a place," a watering hole where the owner and the 3 employees know me by name.  This is coming from a girl who had never had a drop of alcohol until October 2010, and who still doesn't drink most weekends.  The only place I feel really comfortable with a cocktail is at my bar, La Tarasca.

January 2011

It all started on New Year's Eve this past January.  Lynn and I went with her co-worker to La Tarasca and had the best mojitos we've ever had in our entire lives.  Granted, it was the first mojito I had ever had, but I digress.  The bartender was a crazy mexicano from Guadalajara who had the best barside manner.  Every time someone came to visit me on vacation, I brought them to La Tarasca.  Every time Lynn and I had nothing to do, we went to La Tarasca. 

June 2011

In March/April, the crazy mexicano left the bar, and a new bartender came.  At first, Lynn and I were weary of his mojito skills, but we quickly realized he was an amazing guy.  After 7 or 8 months, I can now say that we're friends! He walks me home or to the meto on the nights when I'm by myself, came out dancing with me and my coworkers a couple of months ago, and calls to check up on  me when I haven't come around in a while.  I have my seat in the bar, my routine, kisses all around when I come in at the beginning of the night....definitely VIP treatment.  The best part is that he knows I won't drink more than 2 heavy drinks in a night, so when the free drinks keep coming, he makes them non-alcoholic. 

November 2011

My friend just arrived yesterday from London to work as an auxiliar in the Ministerio de Educacion program.  He visited me in March and experienced La Tarasca with the old bartender.  Clearly, I have to bring him on Friday to experience La Tarasca as a VIP.  He's staying with me until he finds an apartment, so really, who are we kidding? He doesn't have a choice.

"Adolescence is just one big walking pimple" -Carol Burnett

Work is fantastic....with the exception of the homo sapiens between the ages of 12 and 18.
My 1°ESO, the equivalent of 7th grade in the States, have no concept of respect, responsibility, or the reason why they're in school.  (I'll give you a hint guys, it's EDUCATION...not SOCIALIZATION).  I think the reason they're so badly behaved comes down to two factors.

1. They are 11-14 years old.
2. They are Spanish.

Firstly, I started off with my ESO class on the wrong foot.  Their English teacher was aloof and made it clear that the middle school was totally not on board with this whole "auxiliares" idea. It was worded in the form of, "No one has told us anything. We thought you were coming in October.  We really don't know how to coordinate giving you half our class twice a week" because in Spanish schools no one is ever culpable.  Everything is always someone else's responsibility. 

It's also the first year they've had foreign English teachers in the middle school, which means the students have to pay an extra fee (that comes to less than 10 Euros a month).  My school is concertado, meaning the parents pay a small portion of fees (like in private schools) and the government pays another portion (like in public schools).  When some of the parents found out that the extra euros they paid in August/September were for BEDA, they pulled their kids out of my class so they could get a refund.  Of course, the four kids who pulled out are in "the clique" as I like to call it.  What a coincidence, right???  The teachers told me it could be for one of three reasons.
     
a) the family can't afford the program fee
b) they already pay for their child to go to an afterschool academia and don't want to pay even more
c) two parents gave their kid whatever they wanted and then word spread    


Those problems were like so last month.  Now we've moved on to behavioral problems (with the 23 kids that I have left).  From a cultural point of view, Spaniards can be much "ruder" than North Americans.  If you will, imagine how obnoxious your average 7th grader is....now multiply that by the cultural factor, and there you have it: they are culturally programed to be assholes.  There's one boy in my class who must be older than everyone else. (He's either already had his growth spurt or he's been left back a year.  I'm 90% sure that he's been left back.)  He sits in class like he's Kanye West at the Grammy's, with his Justin Beiber hair cut, and doodling graffiti in his notebook (which this past Monday I confiscated because it's not even a school notebook. It's purely for graffiti practice).  He answers every question I ask with attitude and disgust.  I think he is actually so disillusional that he thinks its okay to talk to other human beings, on top of that his TEACHERS, like they are idiots.  It's actually impressive how much hatred he can convey with just his eyes.  I've come to the conclusion that he hates me because I'm probably the only person that doesn't let him get away with his behaviour.  The other teachers have already coined him as a lost cause.  Don't get me wrong, I won't be championing this kid and trying to help him become a better person in life.  I'm just going to teach him how to respect people who are busting their ass for his sake. 

To think, I only have ESO twice a week for 55 minutes each, and this is the effect they have on me.

Today, one of the teachers went out to his car at lunch and someone had thrown 2 bricks through his back windshield.  He just bought the car in September.  It was a brand new black and white Puegot sports car...super chulo.  Everybody in the school knows that it's his car.  Even when the parents come in for tutoria they notice it outside and ask, "Is that really your car?"  Yes, it's possible that some random Alcorcon kids could've done it, but who are we kidding?  In all likelihood, it was one of our lovely delinquents. 

And this is why my boss parks her car 3 blocks away from the school. 

A, E, I, O, U

Today, my coordinator (the teacher I split my classes with) had to go to a meeting/conference in Madrid for English teachers in the BEDA program.  I was still able to split the classes for 1st-4th period because our prácticas student, Marta, is always with us in the mornings.  The kids weren't any worse than usual, but it probably didn't help that it was a Friday and we had 2°C and 2°D (the two craziest classes in primer ciclo).  The only thing I could think was, "Joder....I'm going to have all 27 kids in my 5th and 6th period, on a Friday afternoon, and they know the English teacher and the prácticas  teacher are both gone." 

My fifth period was with 2°A, the only class in primer ciclo with a tutora under the age of 40.  She is the sweetest woman!  Whenever a class isn't listening to me, my default move is to drop everything I'm doing and wait in silence with the stare.  Usually, one of the bossy know-it-alls will say, "Que os callais!!!!" but this time it was little Angel in the back row that said, "Que nos ha dicho Nuria??? Que hagamos caso a Niki!"  Apparently, the tutora told them before lunch that I was going to be coming alone and they had to behave for me.  It was so cute, I almost smiled...almost.  I had to keep up the tough guy facade.

At the end of the class, we were listening/singing the A,E,I,O,U song in the English book.  There were five students haciendo el tonto big time.  When the song finished, I called all five of their names and said, "Congratulations, you five get to come up front and sing the song alone because you weren't singing with the rest of the class!"  I put on the song and the three attention-craving class clowns were complete bobos once again.  The song finished.  I let the other two sit back down and said, "Again, we can stay here all day until you behave and sing the song properly." For the last time, I put on the song, and the three boys started singing.  It was so out of tune, off-beat, and generally horrible that all 27 kids started hysterically laughing.  I couldn't help it....I cracked.  It was actually funny.  I started singing with them and trying to cover up the fact that I was genuinely laughing, but I couldn't.  

Most days it's important to show your students discipline and sternness so they respect you and don't think you have no backbone.....today wasn't one of those days.  Sometimes it's important to just laugh and sing an A,E,I,O,U song about wild animals with the worst 3 kids in class.  We can't be humorless all the time, right?